


New Tricks

by Tierfal



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Fluff, Hospitals, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-01
Updated: 2013-08-01
Packaged: 2017-12-22 01:51:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/907472
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tierfal/pseuds/Tierfal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The point, really, is that Ed <i>does</i> wake up, and everything else is gravy.</p>
<p>[Major spoilers for Brotherhood.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	New Tricks

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for selfish reasons, and it was unabashedly inspired by the way that the extremey talented [nyagosstar](http://archiveofourown.org/users/nyagosstar/pseuds/nyagosstar) writes an amazing hospital scene every ten thousand words or so. It's the usual sort of post-canon AU, I guess? >__>''

When Ed wakes up, he wishes—just for a moment—that he hadn’t.  Some part of him recognizes that that’s shamefully ungrateful, but the guilt doesn’t make it a whole lot easier to surface into a howling whirlwind of widely-assorted pain.

But when he’s done blinking stars from his vision, and he’s talked himself out of yanking the fat IV needle right the fuck out of his own forearm, he realizes that restrictive weight pinning his left leg isn’t an automail malfunction related to the ambient agony in every portion of his body rigged with nerves—it’s Roy.  Roy’s ass is balanced on the edge of one of those ungodly hospital chairs, and his arms are folded on Ed’s knee, and his cheek’s squished on top of them. His face is whiter than the scratchy sheet, and the circles under his eyes are purple and brown like straight-up bruises, and his hair’s a matted mess, and he hasn’t shaved in a day later than too long.  It’s a good damn thing he’s not drooling, ’cause Winry would probably find a way to blame Ed for the rust on the automail—but it’s more than just _passed the fuck out_ ; Roy looks—looks unresponsive, looks _dead_ , and it’s totally surreal hearing the EKG reflect the way Ed’s heart-rate spikes at the very thought that—that maybe—

But Roy makes a soft noise in the back of his throat, and his eyelids rise halfway, and his shoulders twitch, and the shudder travels all the way down his spine.  He blinks and lifts his head, a faint wince pulling at the corner of his mouth, and then his hazy eyes focus on Ed, and he goes still.

Next thing Ed knows, he’s got two arms full of Roy Mustang; next thing after that, he’s got a mouthful of Roy’s tongue; and it all tangles into one thing he’s known for a long time, which is that he never wants to let go of this dumbass, beautiful bastard.

Roy draws back—but only about an inch—when they’re both a little oxygen-deprived.  He keeps stroking Ed’s bangs back like it’s some kind of compulsion.  If Roy’s hair is this gross, Ed’s must be fucking _monstrous_.

“Y—” Ed clears his throat twice; it feels like gargling gravel.  “You taste like morning breath.”

Roy’s smile is so tired and so warm and so wonderful.  “You taste like near-death experience.”

It’s funny that none of the poets or philosophers ever figured out that paradise is Roy Mustang’s fingernails scritching just behind your ear.  “Oh, yeah?  What’s that taste like?”

“Blood, antiseptic, and constant, crippling terror,” Roy says, and his smile quavers, and Ed musters just enough strength to drag him in and kiss him again.

“You say the sweetest shit,” he manages when they separate again, panting a bit now.

Roy’s smile is thin and lopsided this time.  “May I have a favor?”

Ed used to ask _What?_ until he realized he couldn’t deny Roy anything that was in his power to give.  “Sure.”

Roy leans his forehead against Ed’s and closes his eyes.  “Never do that again.”

“What, get shot?”

Roy’s eyes open just a sliver, dark and gleaming.  “Get shot.  Drop to the pavement in a spray of your own blood.  Lie there with it soaking through your clothes, unmoving, insensible.  Respond inconclusively to medical alchemy.  Briefly go into a coma.”

“Oh, _shit_ ,” Ed says as the fragmented memories come cascading back.  “We were—it was that raid—it was just _routine_ , though, up until—” His punctiliously analytical brain swims through the fractured images, finds patterns, mends cracks— “I’m getting so fucking complacent; a year ago I never would’ve forgotten to cuff the bastard before searching him, and I _knew_ there was something funny about the smeary dust, but I didn’t think _makeup_ , didn’t think _array tattoo_ —”

Roy kisses him again, slightly desperately, and sucks on his bottom lip in a way that Ed interprets as imploring. He never knew kisses could be messages, before Roy—the only thing a kiss had ever said before Roy was _You’re physically attractive; let’s fuck_. Roy, though… Roy can do whole sonnets in a breath against Ed’s mouth.

“We’re going to learn from it,” Roy says.

He’d half-climbed up onto the edge of Ed’s crappy-ass hospital bed, but now he’s settling on the creaky mattress in earnest, arms cinching in snugly around Ed’s body, boots splayed out out on top of the sheets. He presses his face into the side of Ed’s neck, and his eyelashes tickle as he blinks.

“This isn’t going to happen again,” he says—quietly, but with that ring of authority that always makes Hawkeye somehow stand up a little bit straighter. “I don’t know that it can—that _I_ can. Facing the prospect of waking up every morning to a world that didn’t have you in it—I don’t know if… I… can. Not again. I’d rather not find out.”

Ed brings the swinging IV tube and the little wires and the burn-ache-stinging needle-pricks with him as he raises his arms and clings to Roy for a long time.

He swallows, when he’s rustled up the spit. “You didn’t tell Al I got shot, did you? ’Cause he’ll kill me.”

“I’m afraid I did,” Roy mumbles. “And that was precisely what he threatened.”

Ed’s extremely empty stomach flip-flops. “Well, that’s fine and fuckin’ dandy.”

“He got on the first train from Yizhou. I believe he’s two days out. You and I both know that the only real danger is that he’ll make you pay his tuition for the semester because he’ll be missing so much of it to be here.”

“I already pay it,” Ed says, resting his head on Roy’s. “Stupid deadbeat smarty-pants brother shouldn’t have to worry about all that money in the first place. I want him to enjoy it.”

“In that case, I humbly suggest that you try never getting shot again.”

“You’re really hung up on this getting shot thing, aren’t you?”

“Edward,” Roy says, lips brushing against Ed’s throat, “I cannot lose you. I am not capable. I think it’s just that simple.”

Roy doesn’t say _Wise up, Ed; when you sacrificed your alchemy, you gave up your one real talent, and you lost your ability to defend yourself.  You can’t go gallivanting around with the same recklessness you had before; things are_ different _now.  You’re vulnerable now.  You’re weak.  Accept it.  Give up on all the juvenile adrenaline-junkie bullshit and deal with your limitations like an adult.  Scaring me, scaring_ all _of us, just for the thrill of pretending you’re still a State Alchemist is selfish, and you know it._

Roy says “I honestly don’t think I could learn to live without you,” leans back to meet Ed’s eyes, and follows the arch of Ed’s eyebrow with the pad of his thumb.

Ed tries to stop his smile from wobbling.  “Old dog, huh?”

Roy smiles back.  “On a short leash.”

Ed curls his fist in Roy’s shirtfront.  Normally he feels bad about the wrinkles, but right now the linen is so crumpled from passing out on top of Ed’s knees that it doesn’t make much difference.

“Guess I’d better not get shot again, then,” he says.

“Better not,” Roy says, carefully negotiating the bowing wires to nestle in closer at Ed’s side.

“Hey,” Ed says after a moment of beautiful quietude.  “Don’t you have a country to run?”

Roy huffs a breath against Ed’s skin, and Ed’s limp hair makes a concentrated effort at fluttering.

“Fuck the country,” Roy says.

“Good idea,” Ed says.  “Fuck the country and don’t get shot.  Sounds like a plan.”

“Smartass,” Roy says.

“Bastard,” Ed says.

“Love you,” Roy says.

Ed grasps Roy a little tighter, closes his eyes, and smiles.  “Love you, too.”


End file.
